Ariana Madix Is Grabbing the Reality-TV Bull by the Horns

A mechanical bull is the centerpiece of Johnny Utah's in midtown Manhattan, demanding attention for itself and for the patrons who choose to ride it. As a young bartender living in New York City with dreams of Broadway, Ariana Madix, a star of Bravo's Vanderpump Rules, rode the bull. But she's more interested in talking about the literal mechanics of the mechanical bull than she is in describing how she once mounted the beast to the delight of an onlooking crowd.

She tells me the trick to operating it. "You're going to go slow like this," she says, pantomiming a bucking motion with the switch that goes back and forth before hitting the switch that makes the bull move from side to side. "She looks sexy and then, you know, you flip her over and shake it and you throw her off. It's kind of like"—but before she can finish, she's interrupted by her boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, who's sitting astride the bull, beaming.

It's a hilariously apt metaphor for her relationship with Sandoval. "He's a big personality in the way that he's like, 'Ta-da!' where I'm a big personality in the way that I'm like, 'This is how things need to be.' I'm very type-A," she says. As Vanderpump Rules heads into its eighth season, the couple is riding reality-star fame, having found a sweet spot of sorts in balancing their big personalities—and working the switches to their advantage.

In the lead-up to the new season, Madix and Sandoval bought a house in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Valley Village, where four of their coupled-up costars also bought homes (Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright, and Tom Schwartz and Katie Maloney), and published Fancy AF, a big, glossy cocktail book they coauthored with podcaster Danny Pellegrino. In past seasons the difference in how they express their big personalities caused them to clash, notably over the book project, and she admits they've been competitive with each other. But she says, "Once we got over being competitive, we realized we have huge strengths that we need to embrace. Where he leaves off, I pick up, and he picks up where I leave off. And that's good.”

She's also embracing the group dynamics of Vanderpump Rules, which she acknowledges took some getting used to. Of her first season on the show she says, "I was being asked to find a place to fit into an already existing group, and that’s not really how I roll. I’ll get to know everybody on an individual basis, but the way that it felt was that it was like, 'You’re a puzzle piece—find your hole.'”

Her seeming reluctance to join in is highlighted in a special "Uncensored" episode that aired shortly before the premiere of season four. In never-before-seen footage from season one, before she was a cast member, Madix appears at a dance rehearsal with her friend and the show's anchor character, Scheana Shay, while producers narrate the events of the day. "Ariana that day at that dance rehearsal has to be the worst person I've ever shot with," season-one producer Jeremiah Smith said; Nicola Marsh, another season-one producer added, "She just made it clear that she couldn't stand us, to the point that we were like, 'Why are you even here?'"

Madix finds that characterization frustrating and not in line with the, well, reality of the situation—which was that she had gone to film a dance rehearsal. Nothing more. “Rehearsal’s over, my meter’s up, I have literally no money and I did the thing that I came to do, which was the dance rehearsal,” she says. And so when producers asked her to stay to film some post-rehearsal gossiping and gabbing, she panicked—then hid. “The guy I was with was so against even me being friends with anyone on the show," she says. As an actor who considered himself above such work, he frequently described people who did reality television as "disgusting" or "fame whores."

So how did she end up doing a show that she often appears to not want to be a part of? An acting coach encouraged her to do it, asking bluntly, "Is Scorsese calling you?" So she signed up, shrugging off the objections of her by-then ex. But his criticisms stayed with her. "I was scared of him," she says. "Even now I think I am a little bit." Her body is tense and visibly so, as if she's instinctively bracing for a barrage of insults. "I don't even want to give it any life."

“I know that on the show I've not necessarily had a whole lot of crazy and specific stuff that happened, but that’s because it all happened before. There was no Vanderpump Rules when it happened to me.”

When pushed, however, she steels her delicate features and talks about him. There were bedbugs, a bout of MRSA, and near homelessness, all of which led to her becoming dependent on this controlling boyfriend who stepped in to help. “I know that on the show I've not necessarily had a whole lot of crazy and specific stuff that happened, but that’s because it all happened before," she says. "There was no Vanderpump Rules when it happened to me.”

But now stuff is happening to her on the show, and it's good stuff—the house, the book, and TomTom. While she isn't a business partner in the West Hollywood bar Lisa Vanderpump and husband Ken Todd opened with Sandoval and Schwartz in 2018, she hasn't ruled out the possibility of bar ownership down the line. “If you asked me this a year ago, I would have said, 'That might not be my path,'" she says. "But now, seeing everything that [Tom and I are] building together, abso-fucking-lutely."

Madix has been critical of Vanderpump's at-times dismissive treatment of Sandoval and Schwartz, but she's since softened. “Over the last year I’ve connected on a new level with Lisa; she feels much more real to me now," she says, adding that she thinks Vanderpump gets an unfair rap for favoring the men of the show over the women. “I never thought of that.... I think that a lot of it is a little bit of a schtick. But I also think maybe she holds us to a higher standard. I don’t think she expects much of the men.”

As for her own relationships with her female castmates, she has, as promised, gotten to know everyone as individuals. "I really love Stassi the human," she said, but when it comes to what she calls "Stassi the brand," she loses patience for what she considers a queen-bee facade: "Stassi the brand is like a house of cards; she will say some shit to you that might really hurt your feelings, but the second you come back at her, it crumbles."

Madix herself has said some things she now says are "cringey as fuck. So cringey." Exhibit A: a scene in her first season when she declares, sneeringly, that she's smarter, prettier, and cooler than costar and romantic rival Kristen Doute. She tells me that scene was actually filmed the night after the finale in which Doute famously confesses to sleeping with cast member Jax Taylor while she was still dating Sandoval. "We were fucking pissed at her," she says. "And I knew it would piss her off, which is why I said it."

But she doesn't regret it. Madix assures me that's not really who she is; it just made for good TV. "It's our lives—but it's also our jobs," she says. As for what comes next, life- and jobwise, she's focused on taking this huge opportunity and, in her words, "building and branching." Those branches might include a digital show, another book, a podcast, and a product line of lifestyle goods à la Joanna Gaines. She also says, tantalizingly, "Maybe one day I'll write a full-blown tell-all book."

For now Ariana Madix knows her main gig is the show and the fame that goes along with it. She and Sandoval both feel a deep connection to their fans, whom they interact with constantly. "The craziest thing is being in places like this," she gestures around Johnny Utah's, "where you were broke and sneaking chicken wings behind the bar and being in such a different place in life." Then, as if on cue—like a producer planted them there to drive the perfect scene home—a fan comes careening up to the table and asks for a photo. They oblige. After all, they know full well, thanks to their success with the book and the bar, that indulging the fan experience is the trick to operating the bull of reality success.

Jolie Kerr is a writer whose work has been featured in The New York Times and The Inventory, among other outlets. Follow her on Twitter @joliekerr.

Originally Appeared on Glamour